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This is the text of a paper I did in college in the one womens' studies class I ever took, titled something like "Women and Spirituality". Given my still-emerging Pagan identity at the time (mid-1998), it was great. Now, a class in Goddess worship seems a little silly. Still, the point of this project was to research a specific goddess, and this was me trying to be different, doncha know. (Please forgive slight errors of formatting - I'm trying to translate Word doc to HTML while slightly intoxicated, here.)
How Some Pretty Darn Weird People Found Goddess
(and What They Did to Her When They Found Her)
Being a Short Discourse on the Historical and Modern Eris
Which is Most Interesting
Greater Poop: Is Eris true?
Malaclypse the Younger: Everything is true.
(Principia Discordia)
GP: Even false things?
M2: Even false things are true.
GP: How can that be?
M2: I don't know man, I didn't do it.
Eris rules this world.
Why do I say this? Eris is a goddess of confusion, strife, chaos and discord. Her very name, from the ancient Greeks, means "Strife," and by the ancient Romans she was called Discordia or "Discord" (Jordan 79). Unlike many of the Greek or Roman goddesses, she doesn't seem to have had a pre-patriarchal presence in the region, arriving instead along with the Thracian war-god Ares, to whom she was either twin sister, a "constant companion" (D'Aulaire 32), or perhaps a "consort" (Jordan 79). According to Robert Graves, except for Aphrodite (who fancied Ares) and Hades (who coveted the souls of young soldiers), "All [Ares'] fellow-immortals hate him, from Zeus and Hera downwards, except Eris" (v.1 73). The D'Aulaires describe Eris' personality in their book of Greek myths:
In Greek myth, this golden apple was to cause a whole lot of problems for Greece, for it was no less than the cause of the whole Trojan war. Robert Graves tells the beginning of the tale this way:
Eventually it is decided that a mortal man should have the decision, and it falls on Paris, who is described both as a shepherd and as a "prince of Troy" (D'Aulaire 180), to judge which goddess is the fairest. Aphrodite, Hera and Athena each promise Paris something in return for his choosing her. Paris awards the apple to Aphrodite, who had offered him the most beautiful woman on earth for his bride. This woman, however, turned out to be Helen, wife of King Menelaus of Sparta. Paris, with Aphrodite and her son Eros' help, persuades Helen to go with him to Troy. The Spartans, wanting their queen back, attack Troy (Bulfinch 216).
Eris acquired a bit of a reputation for this troublemaking act, and a later figure, a Lapith named Peirithous, remembering the trouble Eris had caused at Thetis' and Peleus' wedding, left Ares and Eris out of the invitations to his own wedding. He should have known better, for the two took offense at this, and "thus began the long feud between the Centaurs and their Lapith neighbors, engineered by Ares and Eris in revenge for the slight offered them" (Graves v.1 361).
Eris' powers extend not only over mischief, troublemaking and strife, but also over happenings that might be considered pure chaos. For example, Graves relates that Zeus favored a man named Atreus for the throne of Mycenae and sent Hermes to him, instructing Atreus to ask his rival Thyestes to give up his claim "if the sun goes backward on the dial"; Thyestes agrees to this, and "[t]hereupon Zeus, aided by Eris, reversed the laws of Nature, which hitherto had been immutable" (v.2. 45). It is in this form as a goddess of chaos that many know Eris today.
Why would anyone want to "know" Eris -- that is, invite a spirit of strife and discord into his or her life? Barbara Ardinger sees that she has a definite place in our lives, and discusses the meaning of the goddess Eris in modern words:
Ardinger even presents a ritual in honor of the goddess Gotcha, to celebrate her power and laugh with her at our absurd human lives.
In exploring spirituality connected with Eris, however, a ritual such as this merely scratches the surface. Not very long ago, an entire movement, usually classed as neo-pagan, sprang up around Eris. This "religion" of Erisianism or Discordianism was inspired by a book about her, her doings, and other various related (and unrelated) things. Margot Adler discusses it in the chapter titled "Religions of Paradox and Play" of her comprehensive book on modern neo-paganism in America, Drawing Down the Moon. The full title of the work that began the movement should give you some idea about the character of the religion: Principia Discordia or: How I Found Goddess & What I Did To Her When I found Her, being a Beginning Introduction to The Erisian Mysterees, Which is Most Interesting. It was written by Greg Hill and Kerry Thornley, but under the rather unusual names of Malaclypse the Younger and Oman Ravenhurst. Indeed, the book was popular enough to merit four reprintings in larger and larger quantities, and can now even be found in full on the Internet. In the book is outlined the structure of the POEE (which stands, just as strangely, for Paratheo-anametamystikhood Of Eris Esoteric), a group which is "one manifestation of THE DISCORDIAN SOCIETY ... a tribe of philosophers, theologians, magicians, scientists, artists, clowns, and similar maniacs who are intrigued with ERIS GODDESS OF CONFUSION and with Her Doings" (Hill and Thornley).
In the Principia Discordia, we find much more positive images of Eris. No longer is she the "sinister and mean" goddess of strife. Rather, she's more of a smart-aleck with a marvelous sense of humor. The Greeks told us of her rather nasty deeds in their myths about the golden apple and the Trojan War, but Malaclypse and Ravenhurst show us the other side of the coin:
Chaos is here seen as a sort of life force, in contrast to the "left-brained society" that Ardinger describes. It is a source of creativity and freedom. Like Ardinger says, chaos is the "cauldron of the Great Goddess" that was the original source of all things. The creation myths of many cultures have the world begin with chaos. Vicki Noble notes the feminine nature of chaos: "... the void [is] the precreation state containing all possibilities but not yet manifesting any particular things. In many creation myths, this state is called Chaos and considered to be female" (23). Later she states that change and illumination are linked (Noble 119). For illumination to take place, one must undergo a period of change or chaos, which naturally falls under the domain of Eris. Indeed, seeing Eris thus as a personification of the primal chaos, the state of possibility and a preparer for illumination and not as a bringer of anger and strife, we might say that with Eris all things are possible!
Throughout the whole of the Principia Discordia, we find the same currents of humor and madness seen in the above quotes. A crazy streak and a good sense of the absurd (and its value) seem to be very important when dealing with Eris. The worship of Eris is about freeing the self from whatever chains one is bound by, breaking away from the ordered, "left-brained," male-dominated world that fears the unknown. The exploration of paradox and chaos may hold an important key to those chains. Eris is here alreadya brief look at the evening news will show you that our world is consumed in chaos and confusion. Eris is clearly CEO of Planet Earth Enterprises.
Yet only the destructive side of chaos seems to be present. According to the Principia Discordia, both order and disorder have their creative and destructive sides, and so far we have chosen order-disorder as our fundamental good-bad polarity instead of creation-destruction, forcing us to endure the destructive capabilities of order and preventing us from experiencing the benefits of creative disorder. Where we should have free equality, even anarchy, we have created hierarchy. Where we should be creating, we are destroying. Riane Eisler, author of The Chalice and the Blade (a study of her new cultural transformation theory), might say that we have created a Dominator society, based on ranking one human being above another, rather than a Partnership society, based on linking all human beings together. It's time for us to face the music of chaos and free ourselvesHail Eris! All Hail Discordia!
WORKS CITED
Adler, Margot. Drawing Down the Moon: Witches, Druids, Goddess-Worshippers, and Other Pagans in America Today. New York: Penguin/Arkana, 1986. 2nd ed.
Bulfinch, Thomas. The Age of Fable. 1855. Introduction. London: J. M. Dent & Sons, 1948.
D'Aulaire, Edgar Parin and Ingri D'Aulaire. D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1962.
Graves, Robert. The Greek Myths. 2 vols. Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1955.
Hill, Greg and Kerry Thornley (Malacypse the Younger and Omar Ravenhurst). Principia Discordia, or How I Found Goddess and What I Did To Her When I Found Her. N. pag. Online. Internet. Available: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~tilt/principia/body.html.
Jordan, Michael. Encyclopedia of Gods: Over 2500 Deities of the World. New York: Facts on File, 1993.
Noble, Vicki. Motherpeace: A Way to the Goddess through Myth, Art, and Tarot. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1983.
How Some Pretty Darn Weird People Found Goddess
(and What They Did to Her When They Found Her)
Being a Short Discourse on the Historical and Modern Eris
Which is Most Interesting
Greater Poop: Is Eris true?
Malaclypse the Younger: Everything is true.
(Principia Discordia)
GP: Even false things?
M2: Even false things are true.
GP: How can that be?
M2: I don't know man, I didn't do it.
Eris rules this world.
Why do I say this? Eris is a goddess of confusion, strife, chaos and discord. Her very name, from the ancient Greeks, means "Strife," and by the ancient Romans she was called Discordia or "Discord" (Jordan 79). Unlike many of the Greek or Roman goddesses, she doesn't seem to have had a pre-patriarchal presence in the region, arriving instead along with the Thracian war-god Ares, to whom she was either twin sister, a "constant companion" (D'Aulaire 32), or perhaps a "consort" (Jordan 79). According to Robert Graves, except for Aphrodite (who fancied Ares) and Hades (who coveted the souls of young soldiers), "All [Ares'] fellow-immortals hate him, from Zeus and Hera downwards, except Eris" (v.1 73). The D'Aulaires describe Eris' personality in their book of Greek myths:
Eris was sinister and mean, and her greatest joy was to make trouble. She had a golden apple that was so bright and shiny everybody wanted to have it. When she threw it among friends, their friendship came to a rapid end. When she threw it among enemies, war broke out, for the golden apple of Eris was an apple of discord. (32)
In Greek myth, this golden apple was to cause a whole lot of problems for Greece, for it was no less than the cause of the whole Trojan war. Robert Graves tells the beginning of the tale this way:
But the goddess Eris, who had not been invited [to the wedding of Thetis and Peleus], was determined to put the divine guests at loggerheads, and while Hera, Athene, and Aphrodite were chatting amicably together, arm in arm, she rolled a golden apple at their feet. Peleus picked it up, and stood embarrassed by its inscription: "To the Fairest!", not knowing which of the three might be intended. (1:271)
Eventually it is decided that a mortal man should have the decision, and it falls on Paris, who is described both as a shepherd and as a "prince of Troy" (D'Aulaire 180), to judge which goddess is the fairest. Aphrodite, Hera and Athena each promise Paris something in return for his choosing her. Paris awards the apple to Aphrodite, who had offered him the most beautiful woman on earth for his bride. This woman, however, turned out to be Helen, wife of King Menelaus of Sparta. Paris, with Aphrodite and her son Eros' help, persuades Helen to go with him to Troy. The Spartans, wanting their queen back, attack Troy (Bulfinch 216).
Eris acquired a bit of a reputation for this troublemaking act, and a later figure, a Lapith named Peirithous, remembering the trouble Eris had caused at Thetis' and Peleus' wedding, left Ares and Eris out of the invitations to his own wedding. He should have known better, for the two took offense at this, and "thus began the long feud between the Centaurs and their Lapith neighbors, engineered by Ares and Eris in revenge for the slight offered them" (Graves v.1 361).
Eris' powers extend not only over mischief, troublemaking and strife, but also over happenings that might be considered pure chaos. For example, Graves relates that Zeus favored a man named Atreus for the throne of Mycenae and sent Hermes to him, instructing Atreus to ask his rival Thyestes to give up his claim "if the sun goes backward on the dial"; Thyestes agrees to this, and "[t]hereupon Zeus, aided by Eris, reversed the laws of Nature, which hitherto had been immutable" (v.2. 45). It is in this form as a goddess of chaos that many know Eris today.
Why would anyone want to "know" Eris -- that is, invite a spirit of strife and discord into his or her life? Barbara Ardinger sees that she has a definite place in our lives, and discusses the meaning of the goddess Eris in modern words:
Gotcha is the goddess of absurdity. Cognitive dissonance, practical jokes, and chaos are her realm.... Chaos science is a new way to explain the happenings of the world, and it's also a very old way. It's the mixed-up mixture of raw elements that churns in the cauldron of the Great Goddess, the randomness factor in the web of being. ... Chaos makes people nervous. ... We've been taught to crave order.... It's a very left-brained world, indeed. There's a place for everything, and everything is supposed to be in its place. ... In fact, we need a bit of chaos in our lives. Without it, we become too comfortable, which makes us lazy and self-satisfied. Without chaos, we might never get our act in gear. ... Gotcha ... was in earlier times called Eris. ... Eris was also the hag who wasn't invited to the christening of the princess but came anyway and delivered the pronouncement that turned the princess into Sleeping Beauty. (124-125)
Ardinger even presents a ritual in honor of the goddess Gotcha, to celebrate her power and laugh with her at our absurd human lives.
Mighty and outta-sight Goddess Gotcha,
Eris, goddess of discord,
I recognize your actions in my life.
I honor your crucial role in creation, destruction, and re-creation.
I know that where change is, there you are.
... Mighty goddess, I whirl in your cauldron
I wait in your womb
I rise in your spring.
My intention is to question authority, examine all rules, see through all pat solutions, and raise hell.
Hail, Gotcha, Fulla Fun and Outta Sight! (127)
In exploring spirituality connected with Eris, however, a ritual such as this merely scratches the surface. Not very long ago, an entire movement, usually classed as neo-pagan, sprang up around Eris. This "religion" of Erisianism or Discordianism was inspired by a book about her, her doings, and other various related (and unrelated) things. Margot Adler discusses it in the chapter titled "Religions of Paradox and Play" of her comprehensive book on modern neo-paganism in America, Drawing Down the Moon. The full title of the work that began the movement should give you some idea about the character of the religion: Principia Discordia or: How I Found Goddess & What I Did To Her When I found Her, being a Beginning Introduction to The Erisian Mysterees, Which is Most Interesting. It was written by Greg Hill and Kerry Thornley, but under the rather unusual names of Malaclypse the Younger and Oman Ravenhurst. Indeed, the book was popular enough to merit four reprintings in larger and larger quantities, and can now even be found in full on the Internet. In the book is outlined the structure of the POEE (which stands, just as strangely, for Paratheo-anametamystikhood Of Eris Esoteric), a group which is "one manifestation of THE DISCORDIAN SOCIETY ... a tribe of philosophers, theologians, magicians, scientists, artists, clowns, and similar maniacs who are intrigued with ERIS GODDESS OF CONFUSION and with Her Doings" (Hill and Thornley).
In the Principia Discordia, we find much more positive images of Eris. No longer is she the "sinister and mean" goddess of strife. Rather, she's more of a smart-aleck with a marvelous sense of humor. The Greeks told us of her rather nasty deeds in their myths about the golden apple and the Trojan War, but Malaclypse and Ravenhurst show us the other side of the coin:
What We Know About ERIS (not much)
... One day [Malaclypse the Younger] ... asked Eris if She really created all of those terrible things [Forgetfulness, Quarrels, Lies, "and a bunch of gods and goddesses like that"]. She told him that She had always liked the Old Greeks, but that they cannot be trusted with historic matters. "They were," She added, "victims of indigestion, you know." Suffice it to say that Eris is not hateful or malicious. But She is mischievous, and does get a little bitchy at times.
For Malaclypse and Ravenhurst, Eris was transformed into a radiant goddess of primal chaos (even if she is "a little bitchy at times"). They describe her as she appeared in their initial revelation of her:
Pyrotechnics of pure energy formed her flowing hair, and rainbows manifested and dissolved as she spoke in a warm and gentle voice:
"I have come to tell you that you are free. Many ages ago, My consciousness left man, that he might develop himself. I return to find this development approaching completion, but hindered by fear and by misunderstanding.
You have built for yourselves psychic suits of armor, and clad in them, your vision is restricted, your movements are clumsy and painful, your skin is bruised, and your spirit is broiled in the sun.
I am chaos. I am the substance from which your artists and scientists build rhythms. I am the spirit with which your children and clowns laugh in happy anarchy. I am chaos. I am alive, and I tell you that you are free."
Chaos is here seen as a sort of life force, in contrast to the "left-brained society" that Ardinger describes. It is a source of creativity and freedom. Like Ardinger says, chaos is the "cauldron of the Great Goddess" that was the original source of all things. The creation myths of many cultures have the world begin with chaos. Vicki Noble notes the feminine nature of chaos: "... the void [is] the precreation state containing all possibilities but not yet manifesting any particular things. In many creation myths, this state is called Chaos and considered to be female" (23). Later she states that change and illumination are linked (Noble 119). For illumination to take place, one must undergo a period of change or chaos, which naturally falls under the domain of Eris. Indeed, seeing Eris thus as a personification of the primal chaos, the state of possibility and a preparer for illumination and not as a bringer of anger and strife, we might say that with Eris all things are possible!
Throughout the whole of the Principia Discordia, we find the same currents of humor and madness seen in the above quotes. A crazy streak and a good sense of the absurd (and its value) seem to be very important when dealing with Eris. The worship of Eris is about freeing the self from whatever chains one is bound by, breaking away from the ordered, "left-brained," male-dominated world that fears the unknown. The exploration of paradox and chaos may hold an important key to those chains. Eris is here alreadya brief look at the evening news will show you that our world is consumed in chaos and confusion. Eris is clearly CEO of Planet Earth Enterprises.
Yet only the destructive side of chaos seems to be present. According to the Principia Discordia, both order and disorder have their creative and destructive sides, and so far we have chosen order-disorder as our fundamental good-bad polarity instead of creation-destruction, forcing us to endure the destructive capabilities of order and preventing us from experiencing the benefits of creative disorder. Where we should have free equality, even anarchy, we have created hierarchy. Where we should be creating, we are destroying. Riane Eisler, author of The Chalice and the Blade (a study of her new cultural transformation theory), might say that we have created a Dominator society, based on ranking one human being above another, rather than a Partnership society, based on linking all human beings together. It's time for us to face the music of chaos and free ourselvesHail Eris! All Hail Discordia!
WORKS CITED
Adler, Margot. Drawing Down the Moon: Witches, Druids, Goddess-Worshippers, and Other Pagans in America Today. New York: Penguin/Arkana, 1986. 2nd ed.
Bulfinch, Thomas. The Age of Fable. 1855. Introduction. London: J. M. Dent & Sons, 1948.
D'Aulaire, Edgar Parin and Ingri D'Aulaire. D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1962.
Graves, Robert. The Greek Myths. 2 vols. Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1955.
Hill, Greg and Kerry Thornley (Malacypse the Younger and Omar Ravenhurst). Principia Discordia, or How I Found Goddess and What I Did To Her When I Found Her. N. pag. Online. Internet. Available: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~tilt/principia/body.html.
Jordan, Michael. Encyclopedia of Gods: Over 2500 Deities of the World. New York: Facts on File, 1993.
Noble, Vicki. Motherpeace: A Way to the Goddess through Myth, Art, and Tarot. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1983.